Delphine,
thank you.
Whereas I do not agree with everything you say (but I think those are
discussions for another time), I wholeheartedly agree with your insight
that the Board as a whole is dumber than its member on average. Thank you
for putting this down to words. I would even say, dumber than any of its
members (including myself, who probably ranks at the bottom).
The Board is not the governing body of the movement, and the Foundation is
not the movement. The ED is not the president, and the Chair of the Board
is not the Queen or King. The FDC is neither Santa Claus nor the IRS. Some
of the issues come from the demands and expectations to these positions
that would come from such roles - e.g. the expectations towards the Board
are sometimes mistaken for the expectations one would have towards a
representative governing body of the movement. But the actual, and
sometimes legal roles and responsibilities these bodies have (your much
aligned fiduciary responsibility comes to mind) weight stronger than these
mere expectations, which leads to much suffering.
I do not know of many topics as important as clearing up the roles and
bodies of the movement as a whole. But I know that unless we do, we will
continue to crash face-forward into brick walls again and again. I have no
idea how to get to that promised land, but I hope it will not take us forty
years of wandering in the desert to do so.
I want to say it very clearly, that I honestly believe that, no matter how
stupid the Board seems to have acted, that I believe that each and every
member of the Board during their time on the Board while I have been there
- and I want to explicitly include James - has acted to their best
intentions and to the best of their knowledge. I expect that to continue.
It is utterly frustrating to see how things are turning out.
To all others: many of the Board members receive and read these comments on
many different channels. But we have basically two options to engage, and
both are suboptimal.
# One option is to make sure that the Board's communication with the
community always represents the opinion of the Board as a whole, which
means to discuss it internally at first, to check with legal and PR, and to
go through these cycles again and again. Almost any message, no matter how
vivid and bubbly it might have been, will turn out as a bloodless,
corporate-like speech after that. Never mind that such a process will never
be fast enough to allow for anything that resembles a conversation.
# The alternative is to allow every member of the Board to engage
individually as they like. This will mean that there are much more
individual conversations going on, things can be better explained. But this
also means that the individual Trustee's statement must not be taken as
golden representations of the Board's thinking. If ten Board members engage
with the community (which won't happen anyway, but even if it's five), do
expect five different voices and opinions, and don't expect that everything
said will actually become a resolution (which, in the end, is the only way
the Board as a Board can communicate anyway). This obviously can lead to
plenty of "that Trustee said that" or "no, I talked with Trustee X, and
she
said that this change is a bad idea", etc. - never mind possible legal
implications.
Since I have been on the Board there was never even really a discussion
which of these options we should take. And I am not surprised by it -
considering how creative and dissective some community members can be with
the statements from Board members. Seriously, I am not feeling comfortable
with sharing any of my thoughts here, and even this mail I hope I will
press send before I just delete it.
This mail, please, do not read it as an excuse for the Board. I am not
trying to downplay the current situation nor to take responsibility away
from the Board. I am not trying to blame anyone at all, but merely trying
to explain why the heck we act so fucking dumb sometimes.
Again, thanks,
Denny
On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 8:17 AM, Delphine Ménard <notafishz(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I believe that Dariusz' comment was somewhat blown
out of proportions
(due in part to difficulties in communication inherent to our
multicultural movement). I also think that some of the statements he
made were too "blanket" to let go, so I understand the frustration.
This said, Ori, I want to thank you for what I believe is the most
daring, heartfelt and bold emails ever written to this list.
And I use the word bold very specifically because I believe that this
is what is missing today. Boldness. Boldness does not only translate
in taking (un)calculated risks, it also comes in the capacity of
admitting failure.
I'll tell you where I think we, as an organisation, have failed. It
was already a long time ago, when we started to talk about efficiency.
When the Foundation started working and acting like an American Global
Corporation, and stopped cherishing our diversity and leverage it to
do that thing we once all dreamed of "taking over the world". I will
give you a few examples which I think illustrate the failure to be
bold in organisational ways. They might shed a light on today's
governance chaos.
Fundraising & Trademark: For the longest time, we've been analyzing
what risks there were if Chapter/Entity XYZ fundraised, or used the
trademark. What are the terrible things that would happen if someone
got in trouble at the other end of the world and they had anything to
do with Wikimedia or Wikimedia money. No-one ever said: "let us find a
solution to leverage our diversity and fundraise all over the world,
and make sure that we get all there is to get, together". Or: "Let us
recognize how every single person using the trademark is an asset to
that trademark". No one said, let us work together to make sure that
our organisational network represents our diversity, our collective
core. We're only afraid of what may happen if. We are afraid, or cosy.
After 10 years, Wikimedia Germany and Wikimedia Switzerland are the
only parts of the world where fundraising is happening locally. And
it's not because anyone ever thought that they did it better (well, I
do ;)), but because of technicalities. We have never thanked the
thousands of volunteers handing out flyers for their part in making
our trademark an amazing thing. instead, we're calculating all the
risks, the "what happens if". The "product" by definition is owned
by
all of us, and more. While protecting it is a good thing, keeping it
behind bars isn't. We are diverse, we will make mistakes and learn
from them. We freaking built an encyclopedia, of course we can take
care of it without having to fear everyone and their brother! And
while an organisation is not a wiki, and revert not always an option,
I'm pretty sure that
Governance: No members at the Foundation. OK, I am not for or against
it, but the whole speech "we answer to 80000 volunteers" which has
been served to me over the years (as opposed to a mere 300 members in
that chapter or that other) is a load of BS. Because what I have
observed in the past few years, the Board only serves itself or the ED
(your pick), or "the Foundation" (the word "fiduciary
responsibility"
still makes me cringe today). I am questioning who feels "served"
today. Doesn't seem like a lot of people. But you know, nobody
represents anyone, they're only "selected"...
Governance again: 10 board members. No clear cut majority, ever.
Impossible. No-one can take charge and make things change drastically.
Not the community and "chapter" seats, not the appointed people. An
inertia of the likes I have *never* seen. I have been very close to
the board in extremely different contexts, extremely different
constellations and I have come to the conclusion that however smart
the people on it were, the sum of their intelligence as a collective
body amounted to less than their average intelligence when taken as
individuals. Insane. You cannot "govern" when the gap in opinions is
so huge that you can only always go for the "middle", which makes
nobody happy. I have seen people on the board get lashed at because
their vote on the outside looked like they were betraying the people
they were close to. But we don't know what the options on the table
were, and who knows, how they might have been so much worse. So middle
it is. Bold is but a faint memory (and the bold ones still get lashed
at, look at Dariusz being the only one talking here, and the one who
takes the blows).
Loyalty: We never really prodded for loyalty. Chapters were left to
develop in their own chaotic ways, pushed away because they were a
risk, and when they strayed they were put back under the iron hand of
the Foundation and handled like kids. We never said: "gals and guys,
we're all in this together, let us work together to be better,
together". I know I am not doing justice to all the amazing work that
has been done in the grants department, among others, but hear me out.
I want chapters and affiliates and communities and staff to feel they
owe and own the Foundation at the same time. Back to "governance
again", no representation, a self-serving body. There are still (too
many) people out there who feel "the Foundation" does not represent
them. How do we change that? How do we make sure that people feel they
have a voice, and give them the will to give back to the whole?
Impact: Wow, that one is a big one. We don't know the impact we have
because we never really asked ourselves what impact in our context
really means. Oh, we do have data, tons of it. But what does it mean
to have impact when you're Wikimedia? page views? Number of mobile
devices in the Global South (sorry kittens) accessing the content for
free? Number of mentions of Wikipedia at dinner parties to check who's
right or who's wrong on who last won the Superbowl? We're trying hard,
but not finding a common definition. Or even agreeing on the fact that
there might not be one. Again, how do we find a common direction? It
takes leadership in thinking out difficult questions and strength in
making them heard and embraced. One thing is sure, there are many
people asking others to show impact, but no-one within our governance
ranks making a real and beneficial one in giving a strong sense of
direction.
So yes, I think I understand your frustration. And I wish that someone
had the boldness to take their fingers out of their... ears, and make
things change. Too many people in too little time have been "moving
on" or "exploring other opportunities". And this is indeed a strong
sign that something must be done. You pointed out in a direction, I am
of a mind that it is not the only direction, even if it might be the
most acute and the (relatively) easiest to address.
Cheers,
Delphine
PS. For history's sake, I have worked for the Foundation, I have left
it too, I know the feeling, to my bones. It was not an easy decision
and today, 8 years later, there are times where I regret it, and
others when I think to myself "good riddance". I also had quite a few
other volunteer roles in chapters, committees and whatnots.
PPS. I say *we* and take my part of responsibility, as I have been in
positions where I should have worked harder at changing things.
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 7:33 PM, Ori Livneh <ori(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 4:47 AM, Dariusz
Jemielniak <darekj(a)alk.edu.pl>
wrote:
> There is way too much blaming/bashing/sour expectations
> working both ways - we almost forget how unique we are, irrespective of
> many slips and avoidable failures we make (and WMF is definitely
leading
here,
too! ;)
No, we're not. My peers in the Technology department work incredibly hard
to provide value for readers and editors, and we have very good results
to
show for it. Less than two years ago it took an
average of six seconds to
save an edit to an article; it is about one second now. (MediaWiki
deployments are currently halted over a 200-300ms regression!). Page load
times improved by 30-40% in the past year, which earned us plaudits in
the
press and in professional circles. The analytics
team figured out how to
count unique devices without compromising user anonimity and privacy and
rolled out a robust public API for page view data. The research team is
in
the process of collecting feedback from readers
and compiling the first
comprehensive picture of what brings readers to the projects. The TechOps
team made Wikipedia one of the first major internet properties to go
HTTPS-only, slashed latency for users in many parts of the world by
provisioning a cache pop on the Pacific Coast of the United States, and
is
currently gearing up for a comprehensive test of
our failover
capabilities,
which is to happen this Spring.
That's just the activity happening immediately around me in the org, and
says nothing of engineering accomplishments like the Android app being
featured on the Play store in 93 countries and having a higher user
rating
than Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Netflix,
Snapchat, Google Photos, etc.
Or
the 56,669 articles that have been created using
the Content Translation
tool.
This is happening in spite of -- not thanks to -- dysfunction at the top.
If you don't believe me, all you have to do is wait: an exodus of people
from Engineering won't be long now. Our initial astonishment at the
Board's
unwillingness to acknowledge and address this
dysfunction is wearing off.
The slips and failures are not generalized and diffuse. They are local
and
specific, and their location has been indicated
to you repeatedly.
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